Fanny's infancy

Fanny was born in England in March, 1865. Her parents had just returned from India and JBW was being decommissioned in Shorncliff at the time of her birth. Fanny's next appearance in the official records was in the 1871 census when she was shown as 6 years old and living in Montrose. Ten years later, Fanny, John Baxter Wighton and Catherine Latta were still in Montrose, this time living in the Panmure Barracks that were part of the Forfar and Kincardine Artillery regiment that John was serving with.

It was around this time that Fanny took a train ride from Montrose to Alyth with her father, mother, Amy Louisa Hutcheon of Montrose and Amy Louisa's brother. (I mentioned this in Amy Louisa Hutcheon's biography.) Amy Louisa was Fanny's soon-to-be sister-in-law. ALHW would marry John Murray Wighton in 1885. However, from Ella Peterson's notes, we know that Fanny had already met Amy Louisa some time previously when both of them were attending the Moray House Training College. Since there was a 5-year difference in their ages, I speculated in ALHW's biography that Amy Louisa was in her final years of training to be a teacher while Frances was attending the college as a student apprentice. This opportunity wouldn't have been given to Fanny had she not been a top student. For further information, see the essay on Moray House Training College.

In 1883, JBW retired from military service and he and his family (including 18 year old Fanny) moved from Montrose to the Arbroath area. Arbroath is about 12 miles south of Montrose and on the coast. On June 3, 1885, Fanny married William Boath in the Scottish Episcopal Church in Arbroath, just 12 days before her brother John would marry Amy Louisa in Dalkeith. Fanny was 20 years old at the time while her husband was 24. William Boath was a flesher (butcher) who was residing at 25 Cairnie Street, St. Vigeans at the time of his marriage. Fanny (and presumably her family) was residing at Rosebank, St. Vigeans. Rosebank was likely the name of the house.

It's difficult to know exactly where the Wighton family was residing in 1885 since St. Vigeans was both a little village just outside of the town of Arbroath as well as a parish. Was the marriage certificate entry of St. Vigeans referring to the village or to the parish? I doubt it was the village since it was quite tiny. I suspect that both the Wightons and the Boaths were living on the outskirts of Arbroath and within St. Vigeans parish, rather than in Arbroath parish itself. William's residence on Cairnie Street would certainly fit that description. (By 1890 when JBW died, he and Catherine Latta were living within the confines of Arbroath, variously reported as High Street, Keptie Street, and Abbey Path.)

William and Fanny had two children. At the time of both births, William was referred to as a Master Butcher.

1. Alice Vera Boath was born December 21, 1885 at 25 Cairnie Street, St. Vigeans, District of Arbroath.
2. William Wighton Boath was born February 4, 1887 at the same address.

Tragedy followed soon afterwards. Little William Boath died November 2, 1887 at the age of 10 months of acute hydrocephalus (water on the brain) that he had been fighting for one month. For those of you who have already started studying for your final exam on the Wighton family (failure to complete it satisfactorily means having to sit at the little kiddie table at all family functions), you may recall that Ann Wighton died from the very same disease at the age of 10 months in 1834. Ann was John Baxter Wighton's sister making her William Wighton Boath's grand-aunt. Click the link Water in the Head to learn more about the disease.

That wasn't the end of the tragedies. On February 25, 1892, Fanny herself died at the age of 26 of influenza leaving her husband alone with his 6 year old daughter Alice. (John Baxter Wighton and Catherine Latta had died in 1890 and 1891. You may recall that John Baxter Wighton had specifically mentioned Alice in his will, bequeathing her a sum of not less than 100 pounds.)

Fanny's husband, William, remarried on July 26, 1897 in Arbroath. His wife's name was Margaret Lawson Swan, table maid, age 23. On the marriage certificate, William's occupation was listed as a butcher and cycle agent. The couple had at least one child, Winifred Jean Boyd Boath, born on Cairnie Street in Arbroath.

Fanny's daughter, Alice Vera, was living with her Boath grandparents in 1901. Alice would have been 16. It's unclear why she wasn't with her parents. Equally unclear is how the Boath grandparents could be living in the exact same residence (Rosebank, St. Vigeans) as the Wighton family (John Baxter, Catherine Latta, and Fanny) were reported living at in 1885.

In 1908, Alice Vera Boath married James Thompson White on April 18th. The marriage certificate is somewhat unusual. It was an irregular marriage registration and was ordered by the Sheriff Substitute of Forfarshire (now known as Angus). Further research revealed that sheriffs had a lot of power at that time and could force marriages when the lady was up the dove. We don't know what happened to that baby. However, Margaret Serzans did find that a son, James White, died in Arbroath on January 24, 1914 at the age of 1 year from Tubercular Meningitis.

Margaret's next sighting of the family was in the US census for 1930 where she found them living on Lakeview Avenue in Detroit with three daughters: Vera Wilson White (b. 1909), Elizabeth Watson Wighton (b. 1915), and Anna Winton White (b. 1918). James was working as a machinist in an auto factory while his daughter, Vera (aged 21) was working as a paint stripper also in an auto factory.

According to the census, a young man named Hudson H. McKee was living with the family at the time. Mr. McKee was born in Ireland in 1906 and, as such, he was a few years older than the daughters. Margaret's sleuthing genes took over, and guess what? She found Hudson Mckee had married Vera Willson White and she tracked them down in Los Angeles where they received their naturalization papers. Vera's papers were granted on August 21, 1932 and his on June 6, 1935. On both papers, they list their daughter, Maureen May McKee and her birth date as December 21, 1932. Social Security death records show Hudson dying on June 18, 1974 in LA. A family tree posted on the Ancestry website shows Vera dying in Hermosa Beach, California. That same Ancestry chart reveals that Maureen had a sibling. Margaret is attempting to get in touch with Maureen. Perhaps, there'll be an update to this story.

Sources

Serzans, Margaret (generation 9) who conducted all the research on Fanny and her descendants.

Letter by Amy Louisa Wighton (John Baxter's daughter-in law and John Murray Wighton's widow) to either her son Harry Latta Wighton and/or to her grandchildren (John Latta Wighton and Ella Wighton) around about 1939.

Various letters from Ella Peterson (Wighton) to her brother John Latta Wighton

Various websites, including:

ScotlandsPeople Database (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)

Where to now? To read more about Generation 6 John Murray Wighton's immediate family, just click top to make a selection from Generation 6's genealogical table at the top of this page. The navigation buttons just below will give you quick access to biographies in other generations.